Frostbite
by Jadely
Summary: Her breath grew visibly colder, and Magus knew there were ice crystals forming in her hands. Or maybe they had been there the whole time? "I'd like to see you try," his eyes slit, daring her. MM & CL
1. Prelude

**As much as I love retelling stories to the satisfaction of my own taste, this is not just a simple retelling! There is a decent amount of content and development added, which leads to an equally fair amount of change in the story- one such change being pairings that are (_gasp!_) NOT CANON?!**

**_***SPOILER ALERT***_ This story picks up right where the events of the Ocean Palace/1st Lavos encounter leaves off. If it's been a while for you, Crono dies and the team is left wondering what to do. Long story short, they run into Magus and some intriguing discussion takes place.**

**With this fair (and vague) warning in mind, please enjoy! :)**

-v-

"_You wish to fight me?"_

_Although posed as a question, it was voiced as something with more certainty than that of a question. But of course, the 'mighty lord Magus' was not one to stoop to ask any sort of question on any given day._

_Yet by no means was this was your average, any given day circumstance._

_Teetering on the edge of the drop overlooking the relentless gray ocean waves, the mighty lord's heels dug into the last of the earth like a cat's claws into the highest branch of the tree. One had to question if he could emphasize with the trauma of the hypothetical cat, for it was only the efforts of the favoring wind at his back that kept him from taking a one-way trip off the rocky edge and into the icy, unwelcoming waters of 12,000 B.C. Whether it was intentional or another favor of the wind, his dark and encompassing cape made a convenient cover of exactly where he stood, keeping the three surrounding him in a guessing game of how far he could back up before... _

_Regaining his balance with as minimal a show as possible, his impassive brow turned to the group, whose stance was confused between a moment of defense and concern. His unmoved glare pierced the three weary and worn fighters, leaving them wondering where all the content of their previously transparent conversation had gone; the mysteriously open moment in which Magus had told his own story had been stoned dead as quickly as it had abruptly come about. But in as much as he had shared exceedingly more with these people in the last few minutes than he had to anyone in years (or ever, for that matter), he wouldn't let them walk all over him now. Not now, not ever._

_So he did what was safe when one's heels are on the edge of a cliff; he pushed._

"_Well?" he snapped. _

_If Frog wasn't already solemn enough to begin with, the dark and stone cold glare growing in his eye was doing a fine job of convincing the girls that he was not joking around. But perhaps even worse was the fact that the dark look was also clouding his vision, for he didn't seem to realize what he was doing. His steps could rival the speed of a sloth- so slow and lethally steady that it almost didn't look like he were truly moving. Yet if it had been anyone less than the pig-headed prince looking into those eyes, there would have already been a trail of dust left in their place. Even Lucca felt a chill run down her spine at what was inevitably happening; Frog was going to completely snap and destroy every trace of Magus from history. _

_The invitational question was already beyond temptation for him, and they knew it._

_And Magus knew it too. It seemed it was practically the life goal of that ridiculous Frog-knight to bring him to an end, and while he could assume that he had offended all of them a fair measure, he knew there was a certain measure more in which Frog could find offence with him._

_Magus pulled tentatively at the hem of his glove, ready to retaliate as the distance diminished and the tension heightened._

_Not a muscle in the knight's tiny body was at peace. His brow had creased so deeply that it had blocked out everything around him- a tunnel vision of sorts with Magus being the only object at the end. Surly enough, Frog's left hand had shifted to his sword so slowly that one wouldn't have even noticed his fingers clenched like stone at the hilt. _

_But one did. _

"_Glenn."_

_As if called out of a trance, his hand relaxed and so did the sound of his creaking leather boots. He blinked a few times, taking the daylight for what seemed to be the first time that day. He was stock still for a long, long moment till a hand settled gently on his shoulder, melting a good portion of his previously determined resolve._

_Marle's big, bottomless eyes met his with a long silence._

_"Princess, I-I…" The melting anger and mystification on his mug wore him much better than the previous glower, she decided. Looking at the soft but firm sentence written on Marle's face along with the swift shake of her head, it was perhaps the most serious he had ever seen her. Her other hand tugged at the elegant, gold pendant at her neck, the only outward sign that she felt some unease in all of this._

_To his right, Lucca held a tight, distant frown in place but simply shrugged when he met her eyes for counsel. She had taken on an unusual state of silence, cold and calculated as a prisoner counting the metal bars of their cell. In fact, she hadn't said a word since Crono had…_

_Frog sighed. Crono wouldn't have wanted this, he knew. His shoulders relaxed. His grip on this hilt of his sword relaxed. Unintentionally, he shifted his weight away from the princess, rubbing at his temples. _

_The wizard cleared his throat impatiently as if to remind them of his presence._

_Frog looked back at him for a long, hard moment. "No…" he finally decided with more resolve than before. "Taking your life will not restore Crono's… nor Cyrus'."_

_The ensuing frown could have drowned them all. _

_Magus' hand defaulted to its seemingly natural position at his hip as his watch grazed the misfit group- from the frog, to the stupid blonde girl interfering, to the awkwardly silent one and then back to the frog. They met his gaze with something like apathy or contentment, but which exactly he couldn't tell._

_Frustrated, he looked back out over the sea and decided he didn't care if he fell into it or not anymore. For all he knew, that could be the best option for him at this point. He would not admit it, but for the first time in a long time, Magus was unsure of what to do next. He had fully expected an attack._

_In fact, he wanted one. _

_But catching the soft eyes of that girl as she turned and followed after the other two, he knew there would be no such fight. His eyes followed as them as they walked down the jagged rock of the cliff, off into to the rolling grass of the field, through the snow… _

"_Wait."_

_Unintentionally obedient, the three stopped mid-step. With a great measure of curiosity, they turned back to him, the blonde first with the others more hesitantly._

_The wizard seemed to very much like wasting their time, for he only stood looking at them as if he were about to paint them or take notes about the manners in which they responded to impudence- his, specifically. No; nothing of him moved. Not even his abdomen seemed to rise or fall with the natural consequence of breath, yet they somehow knew he was taking in a great breath, as if he were testing and evaluating the air in his chest. It looked to have both a bitter and confused conclusion, but with the amount of emotion that wizard showed, it could have easily been mistaken for the most beautiful sensation he had ever felt. Or smelt. _

_The group was getting impatient at his silence but he didn't notice, nor would he care even if he did. There was something familiar about that wind, no doubt. For once, it wasn't the black wind, but it was... it close enough to familiar to follow. In fact, it was better than familiar._

_It was all he had at this point._

_His feet were surprisingly light when he finally broke the stillness and moved towards them. "I'll come with you."_

_Perhaps his movement had registered, but his words had not. Shocked into mutual silence, they could merely exchange gawks and gapes with each other, waiting for someone's heart to fail from the sheer revelation of the wizard's words; namely Frog's. Magus, on the other hand, paused for some sort of verbal response which he was beginning to doubt would come. It seemed they literally would not fathom what had come from his mouth._

"_What did you say?" the blonde finally asked, looking at him in pure bewilderment._

_Not one to repeat himself, Magus crossed his arms over his chest and let out perhaps a quarter of a sigh. "You are deaf and stupid?"_

_Indignantly offended, Marle made to defend herself, but not before Frog could melt into more unprocessed, verbal disbelief. "T-Treachery!" he stuttered when he realized that he had, in fact, heard the man right. "Nonsense! By no means!" _

"_We're after the same thing, aren't we?" Magus took another step closer, feigning interest in something on the ground. "You want to kill Lavos. I want to kill Lavos." _

_Lucca merely huffed, crossed her arms and turned away, tapping her foot impatiently._

"_Uhh," Marle began hesitantly, deferred from her attack. "Well, yes. But-"_

"_And who knows," Magus added, "I might know of a way to bring __**your friend**__ back." Three heads snapped up at once, so he continued with an extra measure of disinterest. "I've heard of a certain Time Guru who may be of some use to you, or at least to your foolish friend."_

"_Crono?" The blond girl's eyes came to life as she now seriously considered his offer. Eagerly, she locked eyes with the inventor, whose features looked more alive than they had all week, then briefly passed over Frog's unprocessed sputtering before looking back to the wizard with a smile. A decided smile._

_And that was that._

_Frog looked from Lucca's intrigued expression to Marle's hopeful one and knew he was out-ruled. The idea of the Crono returning to them was more than tempting enough to accept the faults of Magus into their party; they would do anything to get their friend back, even if that meant letting Magus temporarily use and join them. As much as he hated to admit it, he would too; he had no choice. However, that did not mean he would be spending less time__ with the Masamune, and underneath his cloak, his hand rested firmly on the hilt of his trustworthy blade. _

"_Alright Magus," Marle concluded with a wider smile and an extended hand. "You're on our team!"_

_As if some sort of gong had just sounded, the words rang out and shook Lucca and Frog with the full, startled swing of realization. Leery, they looked to each other but held their tongues, either chewing on the weight of what they had just agreed to or waiting for something to blow up. But nothing happened._

_Seeing only the extended hand, Magus grimaced. Without any further acknowledgment, he brushed past the skeptical amphibian and the two girls with great intent of picking up on the trace of peculiar… familiar wind. He could follow it's trace, and by all means, he would. _

_Despite being both insulted and denied, Marle's classic and full-hearted smile widened as she watched him pass. Her eyes fixed on his cape, floating effortlessly behind his monstrous frame and broad shoulders. Even though he carried himself with the confidence of a king, he didn't seem to be going any particular direction. In fact, it seemed like he was looking for something._

_Snapping out of it, she realized the others were already a few hesitant steps behind the wizard, so she picked up her feet. "You see?!" she whispered happily as she caught up to them. "No matter how bad they've been or what they've done, everyone has good in them. They just need a chance to show it!" _

_Lucca and Frog exchanged a cynical shake of their heads, keeping their eye on the skipping princess and their distance from rain-cloud of a prince, opting to let the former lead the way._

_Little did the former know just how wrong she was._


	2. Frostbite

**A/N: Thank you very much to the people who left reviews! They are appreciated :)**

**Well, its all uphill from here, as much as Magus may try to drag it downhill. Chapters will definitely be longer, although I am still arguing with myself as to how long they should be. I haven't won yet...**

* * *

_Where… where is it?!_

Nothing but a waste land met him. His front teeth tapped impatiently against themselves.

The snow crunching under foot of three drained bodies had become stunningly loud, or at least it seemed to be that way when compared to the stubborn quiet which had lasted for hours now. How such a prolonged silence had managed to thrive among the likes of these people was beyond him. It was rare to get more than a minute of peace and quite under normal circumstances, whatever normal could be called considering their present task and the hours they had spent roaming around every nook and corner of Zeal. In his week and a half of time spent with them, a silence had never long survived unless…

Fatigue, he knew was the answer. He didn't have to look over his shoulder to see their weary bodies dragging along in his wake, for even he was beginning to feel the string of ice, wind and hunger.

Still, his crimson gaze tore apart the rugged area with some measure of hope, searching. Wherever it was, it was close; it was so close. It had been _so close_ for days, like a word on the tip of his tongue. He could feel it, smell it, sense it so close by that he could practically reach out and grab it- if only he could find it.

_Where?!_

Though currently at the head of the group, the two following in fragile tow would never dare to let the title of leader slip their lips; not with the wounds of loosing their former still so fresh and raw. And besides, who could call a once renounced enemy anything nearly so intimate?

Said 'leader', having trudged for hours across the sleet-cursed ground of what had previously been Zeal _finally_ turned his head- just enough to check if the two were still there.

"A problem?" quipped the deep and throaty voice of Frog, a tinge of impatience set aside especially for the sapphire-haired prince. He glared up impatiently, stuffing his shaking hands somewhere into the fabric of his cape. For a cold blooded animal, he sure was committed.

"If you're looking for one," Magus turned, brushing the layers of snow from his shoulders onto the already frozen amphibian behind him. Some hiss of annoyance was heard, and before Magus had gained a single step, the positions had changed; Frog stood threateningly before him, eyes set.

"I believe there to already be a problem in existence," Frog growled lowly, all patience gone. Fatigue be damned, that frog was a stubborn man. Or… whatever.

Magus decided to humor him. "Enlighten me, then."

Frog's lips pressed thin in attempts to restrain his temper, and it served him well. "This is madness; nary a handful of frozen hours have spent us to the point of exhaustion, and far too many at that. We've found naught a trace of information about Crono here OR this Time Guru you've sought fruitlessly. Haven't you the prudence to turn into the village and regroup? You'll spend us all at such a rate!"

Before he could retort that he wasn't searching for their brainless friend, or that what kept him out in the cold was none of their business, the last member of the party gave their own contribution to the conversation.

"Oof!" the dazed and shivering girl squawked, walking blindly into the backside of the wizard.

The first response he gave was a glare over his shoulder. "I would take more care of my step if I were you," he warned, watching feet fumble. Despite her own fatigue, taking his intimidating and vexing manner into one hand convinced her to toss her patient and weary composure from the other.

"I'm sick of wandering around this place!" Marle leaned forwards, suddenly full of indignant flare and dizziness. "Its cold and all I want to do is sleep!"

"Perhaps if you wore proper clothing-"

"My clothes!" she interrupted furiously, blushing madly and throwing an accusing finger at him. "We're in a frozen tundra! It doesn't matter what we wear! We're all going to freeze at this rate!"

Magus' voice was icy as the wind around them. "By we, you mean yourself. And him," he didn't bother gesturing at Frog.

Her eyes rolled. "What, you're telling me that you're _not_ cold and worn out?"

"I'm not like you."

"Oh yeah?" her fingers danced around angrily at her sides. "Let's just see about that!"

Her breath grew visibly colder, and Magus knew there were ice crystals forming in her hands. Or maybe they had been there the whole time?

"I'd like to see you try," his eyes slit, daring her.

"Oh, you can watch alright!" she growled. "From inside of an ice block!"

Having been with the group for the fair stretch of a week now, Magus felt he had come to a full understanding of how much each one could annoy him before he had to hold himself back from turning them all into a walking zoo. Frog, of course, was the worst, mostly because he already was a walking zoo. But worse yet was his attitude. If it wasn't him glaring at the wizard out of the corner of his eye _constantly_, then he was going off about honor and character, clearly directing the bulk of his comments at Magus' general lack of such qualities. Plus, he was always at the jump to 'protect' the princess' apparent virtuous qualities. _Right._

Slowly, Magus had begun wishing he had turned him into an animal that _didn't_ have a mouth, though that list seemed to be difficult to create; he _had_ been thinking about it. Some sort of sea animal, perhaps?

Then there were the two strange ones; cave woman and the metal man (the 'robot' as they called it) who were of equal disdain to him. Although they generally left him alone, both their broken tongues and strange quirks were enough to keep him at bay even more than usual. Besides, he wasn't sure if the cat woman would risk a bite.

Lucca by far was the only tolerably intelligent one of the group, and her quirks were a little more tolerable under his gaze, for she generally knew what she was talking about- although apparently she hadn't done very much talking as of late.

Marle, however, was a completely different story.

For someone so good natured, golden to anything that breathed, naïve and pure from the evils in the world, it only seemed natural that she could have no issues with anyone ever. She was easily one of the kindest, happiest and most carefree people he ever had the misfortune of coming across, and it drove Magus mad. There was no place for such ignorant silliness in the world, unless it was at the forefront of the battlefield as a distraction. Thankfully, he had quickly picked up on her rather… short span of patience. In fact, he had quickly learnt that he had a certain gifting for flipping her coin to a much angrier disposition.

Magus, too, had been surprised to get such a rise from her of all people; he didn't think it possible for someone so innocent to have such a temper.

But it hadn't taken more than a day for their stubbornness to clash, and clash it did. A mere day of travelling together was all it had taken to spark arguments, and their fighting only seemed to become more and more heated as the days went on. Frog had jumped in many a time in the name of defending Marle, especially at first. But with the fights growing in number through the days, he had mostly given up. Even he seemed taken aback by her surprisingly short graces towards the wizard.

But, perhaps it had something to do with what he had stated about it being very much Crono's own fault for the fate that had become him.

She hadn't liked that very much. In fact, he had come rather close to having his other ear pierced by a rogue ice needle.

Or maybe it was the time he had called her an idiot?

"Heartless!" she had called him at both offences, the previous saddened look morphing into refined anger. Of course, she was right; she hadn't been the first to call it, and it didn't affect him any more than the previous dead men who had the gall to spend his last breath cursing him as such.

And that's what he told himself as he let a surge of hot magic seep from his hands, melting the snow between them. She didn't seem to notice, perhaps because her mind was more occupied with matters of strategic violence, but Frog took it as his queue to step in.

"Enough of this," he warned, more so to Magus. Although he could not blame the princess, Frog drew the angry party apart and pointed the focus towards a small billow of smoke in the distance. "Before my weary mind leads me to also deal violently with your foul temper, let us retreat to the village."

Marle turned away with a huff and a glare after Frog, wrapping the feeble layers of her cloak tighter around her bare shoulders and wobbling a bit.

Unfazed, Magus's eye gleaned the frozen grounds once more before following. Perhaps he would have to put his search on hold until Lavos had been dealt with and he was free of such ridiculous company.

Besides, he was becoming certain that there was no hope of finding _it _here.

-v-

"_Now where did I put that..." _

_Tearing open the top dresser drawer beside her bed, Lucca rummaged around her well versed collection of tools and trinkets, sub-consciously biting at the corner of her lip as she scanned. "I know I had it- hm?"_

_Her eyes flicked up to the dresser top where a book lay open, practically right under her nose. A series of connect-the-dot figures caught her eye with illustrated descriptions underneath. One hand still in the drawer, she used the other to push her overbearing glasses back into place on the bridge of her nose before flipping a page._

_Dia. B – Space and Time:_

"_It has commonly been argued that time and space are not cognitive separates, but rather intertwined. Time is not merely a forward motion, but consists of pulling forces. __The slowing of time, changes of mass with high velocity and length contraction are the commonly discussed outcomes of special relativity. The theory of relativity is backed by…"_

_She rubbed at the streak of grease from her cheek, leaning into the book and missing the subtle tapping sound on her window. _

"_To the mass__ (= X) __at a stationary position, time remains unaltered by both viewer __(Obj. I)__ and the mass itself __(Obj. X)__. Once X surpasses the speed of I__-"_

_**Tap tap.**_

"_- __X's speed becomes relative to I's speed and perception, thus allowing time to move at a different interval than that of I. Time variations, however, require a velocity greater than__-"_

_**Tap tap tap!**_

"_-__the speed of light in order to traverse space where__-"_

_**SMASH!**_

_Lucca jumped up, quickly covering her face as hundreds of tiny shards of glass shattered and flew across the floor. Catching her breath, she looked the room for the source of the explosion. Dead in the center of the window overlooking the east ocean was a large, ragged gap which had definitely not been there two minutes ago. She stepped closer to look through it and found who she instantly knew to be the culprit blinking up at her, blankly scratching his head. _

_Opps._

"_Lucca, what was that?" She could hear her father jumping off the couch downstairs, no doubt intrigued. Leave it up to him get excited when her inventions broke something (who was the parent again?). At least, that was usually the case when it came to loud noises or smashing sounds in the Ashtear household. This time, however, her hands were clean._

_It was almost a refreshing change…_

_Glaring back out the window, she found the culprit had vanished. "Seriously?" She took another step forwards and her toes made forceful contact with the hard rock which had barged into her room. "Mmrrrroooww!"_

_Almost._

"_Say what?" called the voice was at the bottom of the stairs. "Was that a cat up there?"_

"_Grrahh! What?"Lucca yelled, more agitation than actual inquisition. _

"_Lucca…" began her mother's stern tone from the living room. Oh yes; there's the parent. _

"_IT'S NOTHING!" she shot between grit teeth, hobbling on her good foot to awkwardly nurse the other in her hands. Parking herself on her bed, she sucked in a short breath and surveyed the damage._

_On the other side of the broken window appeared the face of a guilty boy, hanging off the large oak tree's branch adjacent to the window. His big eyes had a rare look of remorse tucked in somewhere which he was trying to balance with a guilty smirk._

_Lucca glared at him through what was left of the window, but leaned over and opened it all the same. "Did you actually throw that giant rock through my window?"_

_He shook his head thoroughly, making the stubborn red spikes he called hair sway a little._

_She narrowed her eyes. "Liar."_

"_Lucca?" repeated the voice downstairs impatiently._

"_Everything's fine," she hollered back. "It was just… uhh… a really large pest." Said pest crawled skillfully through the wreckage, stepping around the broken glass to sit down beside her. He pointed at her foot, and she hoisted it up onto her knee._

"_I think you broke my toe, you jerk."_

_He smiled sheepishly, laughing to himself. Before she could bash him, his hand shifted behind his back and reemerged with the 'lost' screwdriver she had been searching for not minutes ago; before being distracted, that it. Hopeful, he held it out to her as a peace offering of sorts. _

_Only, it had the opposite effect he had hoped for._

"_YOU!" she growled, lunging at him and swapping angrily with her fists. "I've been looking for that all week!" The words came out in choppy breaths and winces. "It's the only star bit piece I have! What would you of all people do with a screwdriver?!"_

_Worming out of the line of fire with a coy smile, his brow popped as he considered defending his handyman dignity. His arms became a make-shift square, flopping one hand back and forth within._

_Cat door, he smiled proudly._

_Her brow lulled, unimpressed. "You took my best screwdriver to make a lousy cat door?"_

_He lifted a finger to defend himself again, but though better of whole body defense when he realized the screwdriver was turning into a lethal weapon._

_-v-_

Lucca had not been her usual self in the last week, Robo noticed.

Beyond the evidence of charred marks on the tips of her fingers and the seemingly permanent red cheeked appearance- the result of her unstable magic jumping off the deep end- there was a certain quality amiss in her usual air.

For one, she hadn't let anyone else drive the Epoch. She was always the first there, jumping into the seat with a determination fierce enough to start a fire (which had, incidentally, happened a time or two… or three). Robo suspected some sort of need for control of safety in the group, as she has also been exceedingly cautious in the fights they picked in coming across stray beasts. Before Frog could slice, or Marle cold ice, Lucca had thrown herself to the front of the line with a wild visage in her eyes; it was a fearsome thing to behold. The irony of it all was that her driving was probably the most dangerous out of all of theirs, and her magic was the most unpredictable.

He could make sense of the spotty magic; Lucca had always seemed to struggle with mastering her magic over her mind. But the dangerous driving, he could not compute. She was usually a skilled and thoughtful driver, easily the most skilled out of all the group, as would be expected of any inventor who wanted to not only create a wheeled machine but also maintain one. Was it a matter of _too much_ focus and not enough communication?

She hadn't spoken once in the last week.

A sharp jolt shook the Epoch, rocking the strained girl in the front seat and the wild one in the back, making the latter look a little green.

"No more ride," Ayla groaned, sinking back into her seat.

"Lucca, perhaps we are looking in the wrong place?" Robo began. The machine glanced out the window at the ocean below them. "It may be best to search on land now, or regroup with the other's and see if they have found anything."

The last thing their time spent searching had been was fruitful. In fact, it seemed to be more of a herald of bad news than anything. After having a day of re-stocking at her house, Lucca had been dragging her team around on what seemed to be an aimless quest in which new issues in different time periods quickly surfaced. Freezing climate in pre-history, wild mystic attacks in the Middle Ages... What other problems would they run into? While their initial directive had definitely become muddied in the water, Robo could not forget (literally) what Magus had told them about a Time Guru who could help them bring Crono back.

Was this what Lucca was searching for still? Or had she gone crazy?

"Lucca?" he repeated, attempting to give the tone of a question to his voice.

Said inventor slammed a button on the dashboard, only shaking her head in reply. Robo looked between the two girls, uncertain of who exactly the head shake was meant for. He had no way of analyzing anything beyond what was clearly spoken. All he knew was that by human standards, Lucca had been awake far too long to properly navigate anything properly.

"Go out now!" Ayla reinforced with a sharp growl. Seeming to not hear her, Lucca only looked up briefly to scan the windshield.

The cavewoman had been inside the Epoch for far too long. If she wasn't the one driving, (and they had quickly learnt better than to let Ayla drive) then she was antsy and jittery, which usually meant everyone else stuck with her was antsy and jittery. Thankfully, Robo was unaffected by such human things, and Lucca had such a hard exterior placed up at the moment that nothing seemed to effect her, neither positive or negative.

Ayla waited patiently for an answer, but after about two seconds that patience was spent. "OUT!" she bellowed in her deep, primal voice, pounding at the glass over her head.

Unsure of what to do, Robo looked back out the window for something else to scan, but this time something more than the tossing of the ocean met him. Far down below, a black, swirling mass had appeared in the middle of a desert, which he quickly recognized as the Porre continent of the Middle Ages. Yet his records held no data of a desert spanning anywhere between the continents during that time period... or ever, for that matter. From what his data told him, most of its interior geography was supposed to be forested. This was definitely not normal, he deduced. The strange mass resembled what could perhaps be called a vortex… but no, that wasn't right.

It was a sinkhole.

"Lucca," he began, "There seems to be a change to the-"

"RARAAAA!" In its ever timely way, Ayla's patience had come to an end. Resembling the resilience of a bouncy ball, she jumped about the cabin, yelling and screaming as though she were being physically tortured. "GOGOGOGOGOGO!"

Lucca's knuckles flushed white as her grip tightened on the wheel. Despite a slight ringing disturbance that Ayla's screaming was causing in his hearing receptor, Robo also noticed that the pressure in the cabin was changing; he was slowly being pressed back into his seat; they were picking up speed. Interrupted by the great, blaring noise of the engine blasting at full capacity and the sudden catch of the Epoch's velocity, Alya was suddenly plastered to the back of the glass cabin in surprised silence, wide-eyed and startled. This lasted no more than a moment, however, before she began yelling excitedly that they were finally going fast.

The land below them melted away into the familiar blackened space of the end of time.

-v-

"Wow… look at this place." Marle's frown deepened as they walked through the commons area. "I can't believe this is all that's left."

In the wizard's opinion, the village was a disgrace.

Between the handfuls of 'enlightened' and 'earthbound' survivors, there was now no distinction, save for the clothing. The camp itself felt almost lifeless; it was sparse of supplies, cold and dreary. Most people stood talking in quiet huddles, shooting startled glances at the foreign travelers and speaking in low voices among themselves. Frog nodded kindly to the wide eyes watching him as they walked past, and Marle tried a faint smile that really looked more like a grimace.

Magus had deemed it unnecessary to go beyond the mouth of the commons, and so was fairly content to wait behind and bat off the prying eyes of his people. However, there was one pair of eyes watching him that kept his attention. A boy, no more than eight or nine, peered out from behind the legs of an older man, watching Magus with what he could assume to be frightened curiosity. Magus fixed his eyes on him, casting a deeper scowl than normal. He recognized this boy.

'_When's Schala coming back to play with us?'_ he remembered the little urchin whining. _'I miss her, Janus. Tell her I miss her. Bring her with you next time.'_

But he never had told Schala about the boy. All those years, he had turned his back and ran through the hardened snow of the earthbound land, back into the skywalk, across the bridges and up to the silent comfort of Schala's room. But he hadn't told her.

Gaining some sort of delusional courage, which was clearly ignorant of the fire in the stranger's eyes, the little boy took a timid step towards him. The sharp snap of wind from Magus' cape being pulled tightly around him finally startled the boy enough to stop his forward motion, although he kept watching the mysterious man. Finally, Magus turned his miserable self away from the general direction of people, and the boy guessed well enough to leave him alone.

On the other side of the commons, Don made up for the lacking of general cheerfulness upon seeing the two familiar faces of Frog and Marle. He seemed overwhelmingly glad to see them. Somehow, he seemed overwhelmingly glad of everything at the moment. In fact, he seemed to be the only bright component of the whole place. He grabbed their hands and rambled on and on about how they were rebuilding and restoring what had been lost, all with the bright hope of a new future free from class distinctions.

Frog nodded, waiting for an opportunity where he could bring up the possibility of their staying the night, but it didn't seem as though a beat would surface for a while. He wondered, momentarily, if the old man had breathed more than once between his seemingly unending sentences.

Marle seemed fully content to distance herself from the long conversation and wrap herself up in whatever she could find to keep warm, which really wasn't much of anything. The commons held only a few people, and some of them smelt… strange.

Frog's protective eye watched her wander off, wishing he could do the same but being too polite to attempt, he remained stationary and counted the opportunity as a test of patience.

"… and if that's not enough, we're going to try this 'plant' thing…" Don's voice was slowly lost on both.

Shivering and near delusional from lack of sleep and cold, Marle began waking in circles to keep herself awake. Upon finding herself in such a place, she would have naturally kept herself busy by talking to anyone and everyone in sight, but her lips merely quivered. She tried to keep her focus away from how exhausted she was, but it was slowly and certainly consuming every thought and feeling. Even her vision was becoming blurred. Her feet grew heavy, and so did her eyes. The concerned faces, the snow, the trees- everything looked like a messy painting now, so much so that she took no notice of the small purple spot in her path until she had-

"_Oof!_" …tripped over something and landed face first in a soft, plushy body of fur. The familiar scent of magic tabs and elixirs tickled her nose.

"Hey…" she rubbed her eyes curiously. Pushing herself from the cold snow and the tiny creature, she was met the glimmering eyes of a sleek, purple furred cat; a strikingly familiar cat, at that. "I remember you. You lived up in Zeal!"

His ears jumped up at that, as did another set across the commons.

"You're… Alfred…" the cat blinked its dark, waxy eyes at her. "No… uhh… Alvin? Alpacheno… Alfredo… no. Darn it!" Marle frowned to herself, trying very hard to reconcile with the name dancing on the tip of her tongue. The cat looked up patiently like a lost child waiting to be reclaimed by their parents.

"Alfador!" she cried suddenly, seeming to surprise herself more than anything. Excited, the cat jumped up and mewed happily, but Marle had only a moment to congratulate herself before she felt a daunting shadow fall on her.

As though she had called his name instead, she found Magus very suddenly at her back, and nearly fell over herself trying to stay clear of his condescending stance.

"How do you know his name?" he demanded roughly.

"W-What?" she stammered, somewhat scared and confused.

"_Alfador_," he clarified as he scooped up the little feline- perhaps the gentlest motion she had him ever bestow- then glared down at her with polar ferocity. "Where did you hear that?"

"I, er, we've seen him… before." Gathering herself enough to meet his glare, she grew a little bolder with the realization that she had done no wrong. "Actually, _you_ told me. Remember, _Janus?_"

If Magus's face could become any more white, it would have at that moment. It had been countless moons since he had been called by that name. How did she-

His eyes closed.

Yes. He remembered. He had seen them as a child back in Zeal, long before he had come back disguised as the prophet. They had been the strange looking group of outsiders he had met at Enhasa, the ones he had told of the black wind as he ran down the stairs like the wind itself, taciturn over the sea. No wonder there had been some vague familiarity he felt towards their group when they had stumbled into his castle once upon a different time.

But he had been right, of course. The black wind _had_ taken one of them- that crazy-haired leader they were searching for now.

And Schala, too.

"What's this?" Frog seemed to come out of nowhere, interrupting characteristically well. "A new addition to our party?" he asked, curiously observing the purple cat in the dark wizard's arms. He seemed bothered at the strange sight, but decidedly said nothing of it. "Very well. To-night we rest here. Come, it has been a terribly long day Marle, and you are in dire need of slumber. We return to the others at Time's End in the morn."

With thoughts of warmth and sleep as motivation, Marle forgot all transgressions and ran after the promise of sleep. Alfador, who had not settled quite so well into his master's arms, looked up very seriously at him, but Magus' mind was preoccupied with the retreating backs of the two. Seeing he would get no response, he jumped down and followed along his master's gaze.

There was no missing the purple creature's sharp contrast to the white snow it trudged through at her side. Seeing this, Marle's heart did the only thing it possibly could; it broke.

"Awe…" she cooed affectionately, extending her arms. "Here Alfador, let me help you."

"Don't bother, he…" Magus blinked, watching the cat allow itself into the girl's open arms.

Although drained, she looked back at him with a sly smile. "Now haven't you said that before?"

A _'humph'_ was his only reply, and so they returned to the silence of the snow crunching under their feet; Frog's making leaps and bounds, Marle's freezing and slipping, and Magus's floating just enough off the ground to remain unaffected.


End file.
